Racial disparities in drug crime essay

Racial profiling did not go unnoticed: Race, Crime, and Punishment Just as conscious and unconscious racial notions helped define the drug problem, they have also helped shape political and policy responses to that problem.

Criminal Justice System, 40 How. Instead, federal and state governments embraced harsh penal sanctions to battle the use of drugs and their sale to consumers. Blacks pay a higher "trial penalty" than comparably-situated whites; Whites receive a larger reduction in sentence time than blacks and Latinos for providing "substantial assistance" to the prosecution; Blacks and Latinos with a more serious criminal record tend to be sentenced more severely than comparably-situated whites; Blacks are more likely to be jailed pending trial, and therefore tend to receive harsher sentences; Whites are more likely to hire a private attorney than Racial disparities in drug crime essay or blacks, and therefore receive a less severe sentence.

People of color experience discrimination at every stage of the criminal justice system and are more likely to be stopped, searched, arrested, convicted, harshly sentenced and saddled with a lifelong criminal record. Other racial groups are also impacted by the drug war, but the disparities with these highlighted groups are particularly stark and well documented.

One in 13 black people of voting age are denied the right to vote because of laws that disenfranchise people with felony convictions.

Inthe Committee recommended that the United States take the appropriate measures to review legislation and policies to "ensure effective protections against any form of racial discrimination and any unjustifiably disparate impact.

Whereas possession of grams of powder cocaine triggered a 5-year mandatory minimum sentencepossession of 5 grams of crack cocaine triggered the same mandatory minimum penalty. Inmates in adult facilities, by race and ethnicity.

The video traces the drug war from President Nixon to the draconian Rockefeller Drug Laws to the emerging aboveground marijuana market that is poised to make legal millions for wealthy investors doing the same thing that generations of people of color have been arrested and locked up for.

One in nine black children has an incarcerated parent, compared to one in 28 Latino children and one in 57 white children. The rates bear no relationship to rates of offending; to the contrary, the evidence is clear that whites engage in drug offenses with relative impunity compared to blacks.

More than 13, people were deported in and just for marijuana possession. They are usually barred from reentering the United States, often for life. Whites were 47 percent of those in state-funded treatment centers and made up less than 10 percent of those committed to prison. The Committee has reviewed two United States periodic reports, [] but has never directly addressed racial discrimination in the U.

Because of its recognition of the racialized role of criminal systems, the Committee considers "the number and percentage of persons belonging to [racial and other such groups] who are held in prison" to be significant indicators of racial discrimination in a criminal justice system.

This may be an extraordinarily difficult undertaking, but it is imperative. We work to eliminate policies that result in the unfair criminalization of communities of color by rolling back harsh mandatory minimum sentences and by addressing on the rampant over-policing of these communities.

The war on drugs "has become a replacement system for segregation [by]. The same study found that this was a result of law enforcement focusing on crack offenders, on outdoor venues, and dedicating resources to racially heterogeneous neighborhoods. Our Priorities The Drug Policy Alliance is committed to exposing discrimination and disproportionate drug law enforcement, as well as the systems that perpetuate them.

It offers no relief from high rates of black incarceration that have been produced by "racial politics, not by a crime wave," [95] and that reflect as well as contribute to the perpetuation of white dominance.

It makes little sense to reduce racial disparities in drug control efforts by increasing the number of arrests and rate of incarceration of white drug dealers.

The Committee does not have any power to compel a State to accept and act on its recommendations and there is no system of sanctions for States who refuse to do so. If the United States were to take its treaty obligations seriously, it would have to look long and hard at the way race has influenced the choice of drugs to target and the response to their use.

ICERD does, however, require State parties to ensure that "competent national tribunals and other State institutions" offer effective protection and remedies against racial discrimination and to ensure that everyone has the right to seek reparation in court for damages suffered because of the discrimination.

Ending policies that permanently exclude people with a drug arrest or conviction from key rights and opportunities.

The racial dynamics in sentencing have changed over time and reflect a move from explicit racism to more surreptitious manifestations and outcomes. United States Law Drug laws are race-neutral on their face. Looking narrowly at the problem of racially disparate incarceration rates, it insisted that the disparity reflected "differential involvement in crime by the various groups.

The drug war has produced profoundly unequal outcomes across racial groups, manifested through racial discrimination by law enforcement and disproportionate drug war misery suffered by communities of color. In it recommended that the United States ensure that the high incarceration rate of these minorities was not a result of the "economically, socially and educationally disadvantaged position of these groups.

In it reiterated its concern with regard to the persistent racial disparities in the U. In this publication, The Sentencing Project reviews the research literature of the past twenty years on racial disparity in sentencing, organizing the findings in six issue areas: As law professor David Cole has observed, racial inequalities in the criminal justice system "do not step from explicit and intentional race or class discrimination, but they are problems of inequality nonetheless.

Did we know we were lying about the drugs? It is hard to conceive of a plausible justification.

Eliminating policies that result in disproportionate arrest and incarceration rates. Many independent experts believe that because U.The War on Drugs has led to controversial legislation and policies, The effects of the War on Drugs are contentious, with some suggesting that it has created racial disparities in arrests, The majority of prisoners are arrested for drug related crime.

(Spohn, ) Crime rates, law enforcement priorities, sentencing legislation and other factors play a role in creating racial disparities in incarceration. (Roth, ). The prosecutors, more than any other officials in the criminal justice system, have the most direct impact on racial disparities, and thus, must bear the most responsibility.

There are many reasons for the racial disparities in drug arrests, including demographics, Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Crime and Criminal Justice in the United States.

In the United States, these policies have focused on the link between drug, gang activity, and crime, emphasizing punishment over treatment.

Essay on Racial Disparities ﻿ Racial Disparities in the Judicial Systems Carlos. The past quarter century of American history has been profoundly impacted by the “war on drugs.” Ever since the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of was passed by President Richard Nixon, the number of yearly incarcerations for drug violations has grown exponentially.

Racial Disparity; Drug Policy; news. August 07, causing racial disparities in capital sentencing to begin as early as police investigations. The Sentencing Project's key fact sheet provides a compilation of major developments in the criminal justice system over the past several decades.